Todays Shoot - The Graveline Group

I got a random missed call while working the other day, and I saw it was my good friend from middle school - Nick Graveline. In our time as good friends, we were far more then just dudes who jammed, skated, etc. our families were interchangeable. His parents were like secondary parents, his home, a second home. After just, drifting apart as life goes on, he has continuously supported my work, even bought a limited edition copy of my book!

anyway, so he joined his parents in their real estate company, and needed new photos ASAP. So I responded to his call, and got him in the next day (today) at noon.

Jeanne was wearing a dress, while Rich and Nick wore suits and ties... WITH SHORTS! haha

So needless to say - I had to shoot above the waist.

I started with split lighting but I wanted to give them some depth so I used the 3x4 soft boxes but put them in the horizontal position, I shot these with the 70-200 2.8, canon mark 2 1ds at ISO160 - shot at a 160th - at F16 - weird right?! anyway - I really didnt dig the split lighting - this can work for a band but i didnt think it worked well here
































I added a third light - a 1x4 soft box horizontal - up about 8-10 feet pointed down and liked these photos WAY more - it fit what they were going for much better, and complimented their look much more effectively.
































After finishing with that set up - I boomed a beauty dish above them and pointed it at a 70 degree angle or so toward them - again - i wasnt really into the group shots here - but the solos of nick i think came out well - these were same settings but F20



















































The last light set up i did was two rims on the side of the backgrounds at about 8 feet up - pointed downward and in to their lower face/shoulder area - at 50% - with a 3x4 soft box horizontal up front - i figured that would give them really good highlight/mid type of shot - my settings for this were ISO160 - F14 - at a 160th
































































After finishing the professional stuff, Rich and Jeanne wanted some couples photos - I used two softboxes but used one as a bit of a backlight by shooting at an extreme angle to give them both a over saturated glow, which worked better for some of the images (below) and kinda sucked for some of the other images (obviously not below! haha)






































it was great to reconnect with a secondary family. great people, and im always glad i can help out and work with some people who saw me grow up, and come into my own as... whatever the hell i am now.. hah.

Todays Shoot - Chasi (NSFW)

I really like working with a variety of models - not just the ones covered in body mods, but those who have no ink, and normally do fashion/swimwear type of stuff as well

So when Chasi reached out to shoot for this project - I was taken back a bit - because she isnt generally the type to reach out to me for a shoot but none-the less - i was super stoked!

We started off in studio on white - split lighting - two 3x4 softboxes on profoto compact 300s - shot with the 70-200 at F14-16 iso100 - at a 160th

























































Afte that i boomed a beauty dish as high as possible and pointed it at a slight angle toward the background - shot these at the same settings but F20












































































After shooting that I wanted to do some stuff on location in the basement and maybe outdoors -with the speedlite flash to continue the style i started with emmy (go back a few shoots and youll see it).

I jumped my ISO to 400 - and shot with the transmitter so i could use the flash off body

theres only one basement shot - Fstop was at 10



















then we went outside and it was SHITTY weather, misting/raining, super dark, a storm was brewing - so it was PERFECT for black metal photos!

These are the 24-70 - at 2.8 at a 250th

























































After that i broke the flash out again and used it against the creepy sky - trying to blend the light a bit by shooting the flash at F14 - then the sky at a 200th - I really should have been less lazy and grabbed lights for a better effect and lighting - but I didnt know if the sky was going to open up in that time, so i just went with what i could.



















































We then found a nice grassy area - which is what ive been wanting to shoot for a while - a very natural - nature type of environment for the corpse paint stuff - shot this natural with the looming lightning storm at F2.8 at a 200th

























































































all in all im super stoked with the natural light and in studio shots - not sure if im really feeling the flash ones - but maybe if i blend them a bit in post they could work... maybe...

Todays Shoot - Marisa and Victoria (NSFW)

At first Marisa was VERY hesitant to model for me, as she had not done anything like it before, and had planned not to.

Eventually she came around and has even sent a bunch of other models my way for the corpse paint project. She even brought another model with her for the shoot - Victoria - who had never done a photoshoot before.

Anyway - So Marisa was a trooper and decided to model a whole bunch of stuff for her first time doing this style of photo session. Shes a belly dancer and a burlesque performer, so she had some experience, which came in to play often during the shoot.

We started off doing some fashion/gothy/nude work - for this i shot with the 70-200 - and i have a fucking hair on my sensor! so its in every shot cause none of these are edited... anyway - canon mark 2 1ds - ISO100 - 125th at F16. split lighting - two 3x4 softboxes at full power. We did a bunch of different stuff - I really like the shots with the black fabric.











































































































































































After shooting that I started with Victoria who shot only corpse paint work - these shots are the same lighting and settings































































































I then put up a beauty dish pointing straight down on a boom - at half power - and jumped my Fstop up to 22, for another round of corpse paint shots with Marisa and Victoria
























































































































































Then I went back to the split lighting for some extra photos I wanted to do before hitting the basement - same settings - Fstop at 16































































































Then we hit the basement, all of these shots are with the dynalite kit, 2 uni400s - 2 cold tone umbrellas - at 45% power - all shot with the mark 2 1ds - F14-18 - depending on how tight the spot we were shooting in was - such as the hallway - would be F18 - and big open areas would be F14-16 - all with the 24-70 lens
























































































































































I also did something I havent done before - shots of 2 models together for this project..... im not sure if im going to do more of this or not... what do you think?






































































kudos for two models who havent done anything like this before - doing an amazing job modeling for these projects!